Many of the comments to the Thunderbird / mail post include suggestions about features for Thunderbird. These range from topics like adding visualization to adding calendaring functionality.

I encourage people to take these topic to the Thunderbird development and discussionareas. I would say the same thing if the topic was Firefox. Feature and product planning happens within the project group. For example, there are many comments about calendar functionality, and there is an active calendar project underway. The Thunderbird discussion areas are the right place to ask about the roadmap for integrating Lightning into Thunderbird, to note the degree of need and to look for a timeframe. Better yet, that’s the place to get involved in making things happen. Mozilla is successful when we are rooted in active, distributed involvement and contribution.

If it turns out that there is some barrier to getting involved, or if there is some other problem for contributors, then we’re in a different place and I definitely want to know about that.

I suspect most of us agree there is a lot of exciting potential improvements for Thunderbird and for mail in general. The point is how best to get sustained, focused attention and real movement to addressing these.

sunbirds lightning calendar is already there. The idea was to add Instant Messaging, and serverless Retroshare Email and Messenger.
Think it is more important to hear, what you not say , than what you say about Thunderbird.
Google wants Firefox as G-Browser, nothing is done to disturb Google Mail by enhancing Thunderbirds features. This is the reality. -> Google Foundation !

To echo CableGuy’s comments (original post) there are a couple of big things to look at in Thunderbird. Firstly, email is “so 1990s” … the world has moved on … chat is now the way much comms is done, and younger generations are not adopting to email necessarily. Simple solution: add chat to Tbird, alongside email and move it in the direction of a “communicator”.

Secondly, the security model employed in Tbird is out of date. People generally send emails to people they already know, and there are simpler methods of securing p2p comms than the current design. The trick is to eliminate any modes that are unnecessary.

If searching for a value statement and a direction, look at Skype. Of course, it would be crazy to add VoIP to Tbird … but it isn’t unreasonable to add chat and p2p security.